Why do I have to explicitly mark notifications I have read?

[BenedictV]

In SCN communications tab a followed activity would be automatically marked as read, once I click the next communication in my stream.

Can we do the same for notifications please? instead of having to mark each notification as read.

[achab]

Just voted a few ideas :-). I agree there is room for improvement in the notifications mechanism.

[jerryjanda · Accepted solution]

As reported in the January 19 release notes (https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/WHP/SAP+Community+Release+Notes) and highlights (https://blogs.sap.com/2017/01/25/release-highlights-as-of-january-23-2017/), notifications are now marked as read automatically when clicked.

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

But only when left clicked - not when right clicked to open it in a new window.

And it is based on that clicked notification and not based on the read content, which might have been a wrong design decision under the light of future email notifications where people may get into the content from the email.

[former_member186338 · Accepted solution]

"Click" on the notification item is not the useful way of reading the notification 🙂

When I see a number of notifications I prefer to open each item in the new tab (with right click). In this case the notification will not be set as read automatically.

If I left click on the notification item then I will have to spend time to return to the notification list. Poor usability!

[former_member186338 · Accepted solution]

Right click will require tracking of real page reading, not just link click 🙂

[former_member28818 · Accepted solution]

Sorry Vadim. I will inquire if right-click can also make it count as "read". In the mean time, you can use CTRL+Left Click or Click the mouse wheel (if your mouse has one) to open the notification in a new tab and mark it as read at the same time.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Best,

Sajid

[former_member186338 · Accepted solution]

Ctrl+Left Click require to use keyboard 🙂 I prefer to use only mouse

Mouse wheel click depends on mouse settings and browser used...

And for sure "I will inquire if right-click can also make it count as "read"" - useless, because the right click open menu!

The issue is not the click event but the page read tracking. Hope you understand what I am talking about.

[BenedictV · Accepted solution]

Right-clicked and opened this discussion....Was about to reply to Jerry saying it does not work as expected 🙂

[former_member28818 · Accepted solution]

Ok Vadim. If that is the technical thing that needs to be inquired (page read tracking), I will mention that as well. However, I have not noticed our users having trouble with this feature as much. I apologize that this is not according to your particular preference.

Best,

Sajid amir

[former_member186338 · Accepted solution]

Auto read notification using page read tracking has another advantage - the notification will be marked as read if you open the discussion with new reply not using link in notifications but just browsing the questions for some tag.

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

TBH at this point I'd prefer the SCN team not to spend any more time on this. It was a bigger pain point back in October than now.

I get less than a dozen notifications per visit. Here is my process: I open notification list, then right-click on the ones I want to read and open them all in new tabs. Then I read them, go back to the list and use "Mark all as read". Sometimes I get interrupted and don't get a chance to read them all before closing the browser. This is where it's actually handy that all notifications are still not marked as read. Since I don't have too many, I have no problem remembering which ones I didn't finish reading.

I believe "mark all" was not available in the beginning, so that was probably the main problem. Sure, it would've been helpful if "mark as read" happened when the link was opened in a new tab (by right-click) but it's not a showstopper IMHO. Expecting a website to track the actual reading is neither reasonable nor really required, I believe. Of course, "mark as read" may seem as a misnomer and should be "mark as opened" but it's such a minor thing that is just not worth spending any time on it. Don't know about you guys but I'm not picking this battle.

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

I had only reported a fact - nothing more.

I have in average about 25 notifications distributed over the day, of course it would be more with traffic like pre-October. The auto mark as read by clicking the link is helping and takes away some effort, as well as the button to mark all as read.

However, I consider this only as first treatment to keep the body alive that later becomes the 6 million dollar man.

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Sorry, Juergen, didn't mean it as a personal comment on your post, just a general one. (Got lost in the conversation tree. 🙂 )

I don't object if anyone wants to keep enhancing this but there are higher priorities at the moment.

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

I didn't take it as such and certainly agree that there are more important issues now

[jcgood25 · Accepted solution]

Ever see the movie Groundhog Day? Bill Murray (not to be confused with our community Bill M) relives the same day over and over and over and over again until he gets it right, waking up at 06:00 to an alarm clock playing Sonny and Cher's 'I got you babe'. I saw the fresh content here talking about the left/click right/click issue and then upon further scrolling and scrolling came to realize this thread started all the way back to right after the launch in October.

[jerryjanda]

Hi, everyone:

This is a general response that I hope addresses everything above. It is not meant to single out anyone.

Some of the comments here have taken a turn to nasty. There's really no reason for that.

Moderators and members of the community team are doing their best to respond to all comments, questions, requests, and bug reports. In my case, it's my job. In the case of moderators, they freely volunteer their time, and their service is tremendously appreciated. (On a personal note, I also appreciate Benedict's input. There's a good reason why I interviewed him for Member of the Month. Now if I can just get him to upload a profile pic so I can update the Member of the Month list... 😉 )

It's important to understand the difference between a bug here and a feedback request. As noted above, "marking notifications as read automatically" is a feature that needs to be implemented. What Steffi explained is the preferred process for sharing this feedback, which we welcome.

As you might imagine, the same requests come up multiple times -- as some features are in high demand. This happens to be one of them, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. We even made note of it during open beta. (We have a full list of previously captured feedback available here http://go.sap.com/community/about/beta-feedback.html -- and this one appears there: "Automated 'mark as read' functionality for notifications.")

The challenge becomes answering the same comments multiple times and trying to ensure that we are tracking one entry in Idea Place. Per Steffi's point, if you find feedback similar to yours in Idea Place and vote for it, that helps us measure its overall demand and we can prioritize new features accordingly. If the same idea is entered multiple times, it becomes a tad messier.

Don't get me wrong: We want people to start conversations, offer feedback, share ideas. All of the explanations above are just meant to help streamline the process. You can learn more about that here: https://blogs.sap.com/2016/10/05/reporting-bugs-and-providing-feedback-after-go-live/

In the end, I fully expect the same ideas to get entered multiple times. This response -- and the one from Steffi -- are meant to serve as helpful guides.

I know that this change has caused a great deal of frustration, and it's only natural for this to manifest in comments. I'm going to leave this discussion open in case anyone would like additional info from me. I am happy to respond. I only ask that we try to maintain the levels of civility outlined in our rules of engagement.

Best regards,

--Jerry

[former_member186338]

From the common sense point of view:

In the previous SCN the automatic clearing of notification was a very useful feature. It's obvious for everybody.

In the new SCN it was decided not to implement it - strange decision! May be there are some technical issues with the implementation of this feature? Or?

But I see no reason to vote for this feature in idea place, it has to be implemented.

[Steffi_Warnecke]

Hello Benedict,

there is an idea for that: Idea Place

Check it out, vote on the other ideas, you like to support.

Regards,

Steffi.

[waldo]

This don't replay the question.

And your link does not redirect to the "idea" for the "solution". 😞

[Steffi_Warnecke]

It does not? "Can we have it marked as read?" - "Yes, if you support the idea that is created for this."

I think that's pretty much the answer, isn't it? 😉

And no, I did not link the exact idea on purpose, so he can see that there are other ideas as well. It's not too hard to seach in the idea place.

Regards,

Steffi.

[waldo]

I feel like that all the "moderators" of SCN are sensitive for changes and respond in this way to the end users of the community. Instead of responding now... well, you could not answer it.

It is a subtle way to accept that you did not answer the question, and let other people to interact with the idea.

PS; comments can not be changed, it is this purpose? (oh yes, I've already posted "the idea").

[Steffi_Warnecke]

I don't understand, what you mean by "I could not answer it".

The feature to automatically mark notifications as read is not implemented. If you wish to support the idea of having that feature, you can do so with votes in the idea place.

Idea place is the location to put all feedback for new ideas. It's not a coincidence, that we point to that place and surely it's not to give users a run-around to frustrate and confuse them. It's where those things are supposed to go (as written on the support page).

What would be an acceptable answer for you to this question?

PS: I'm also an "end user" of this community.

.

[former_member186445]

it seems some people consider the Moderators as the architects of the new community and expect them to answer all questions rapidly and even better, solved within the minute...

they're shooting at the wrong people. Can imagine that the last days haven't been easy for any of the Moderators.

M.

[kaus19d]

Hi Mario,

We know that Moderators are also General SCN Users like us & everyone in SCN. But I have a small doubt, that the question was fired by a normal SCN-user. Now the question is that, the User here did not specifically ask the question to any Moderator or anyone specifically. So, is it not possible that the SCN issue handling team, i mean, 1 of those team members could have replied here, as he/she can also see & hope the matter will catch someone's eye like that. Well another real question really stands that if The SCN Moderator is not having the authority to solve the matter or he is not helping in this issue, then, why on earth he is trying to put an answer because no-one is making anyone mandatory to put a reply while he really do not have a proper reply to the Question.

Thanks,

Kaushik

[kaus19d]

Hi Steffi,

I think, here you failed to reply why the user again need to post this matter in the Idea Place. Instead you just only told to re-post in Idea Place.

Thanks,

Kaushik

[Steffi_Warnecke]

Hello Kaushik,

nowhere did I say he should re-post this in the idea place. I wrote clearly, that an idea about this already exists and he can support it by voting on it.

Regards,

Steffi.

[kaus19d]

But unlike the User here, I also clicked on the hyperlink, it was & is taking to the Idea Place, not pointing to any single Thread also directly relevant to the Question here. If i say more, then would be offensive, but could not help myself repplying that the Answer you posted was not a complete one, I will mention this in this reply once again as the hyperlink could have at least pointed to a Idea-Place Thread, so that the user could have followed or vote there. What I tried to say is that you be a little bit more brief. Instead of giving a Link, you could have only mentioned that the matter to search in Idea Place & vote if available. I know I am not asking for any spoon-feeding, but instead if needed people to follow your thought-level then sometimes pin-pointing location helps getting more people to browse there & hence increase of viewers of the matter, which I can leave to the viewers choice for voting or non-voting. I think you got my point what I was trying to say. The Link is not pointing to any of those discussions over there which is kind of lack of complete information, I would say.

Thanks,

Kaushik

[Steffi_Warnecke]

"I think you got my point what I was trying to say."

Nope, I really don't, but lets leave it at that.

Regards,

Steffi.

[BenedictV]

Hi Steffi,

Thanks much for the suggestion. Will surely do that.

You have been real helpful to everyone struggling with the new layout this past week 🙂 and unfortunately people started thinking you are responsible for all this 😐

Atleast you had the status message in the previous platform for venting out 🙂

[Steffi_Warnecke]

Aww, thank you, Benedict! I do my best. 🙂

And yes, the status updates are missed, but we took over the Coffee Corner and re-use it as such, when needed. ^^ You are very welcome to come by. The CC at least is easy to find in the Community dropdown list directly under the "Questions & Answers".

Kind regards,

Steffi.

[waldo]

Benedict, following the suggestion from Steffi, you should read and vote some of these ideas.

And when SAP reads the idea (min required +10 votes), and when SAP works on the idea, then maybe this question could be mark as solved 😉

[kaus19d]

Wow, so, voting is required!!!! even if users are not able to use properly & bugs reported & features gone & All private information became public.

1 thing, I am sure that for notifications, we have to mark manually as Read. I do not know compared to the old where we need not required to mark as Read, here it is there. Why not instead of having the manual option for "Mark as Read", there remains the option called as Mark as Unread like the similar options we get in mails like gmail or yahoomail. I am not liking to receive anyone feedback or reply here to ask me post in the Idea Place. Because already posted here & it takes a lot of times page refresh to post a single content only.

Thanks,

Kaushik